Links Shminks #15

The many possible outcomes of a Pascalian Wager render it useless.

The 10 weirdest right-wing Xian conspiracy theories

Vjack talks about Atheism+ and where it went wrong.

Richard Dawkins had a short interview on The Daily Show, and a longer interview with Jon Stewart on-line.

A great post for those wondering if a religion is harmful.

Rosa Rubicondior's take on the censorship tendencies of religion.

An atheist wonders if his rationalization to eat meat is religious in nature.

An atheist thinking about the kind of theist he could be.

And finally, a cartoon creationist needs representation.

Prayer Pamphlet

Now It All Makes Perfect Sense

Self-Defeated

One of the stupidest ideas in the Christian apologetic handbook is that the ability to construct self-defeating statements says something about the nature of reality. For example, I’ve seen posted twice this last week (here and here) the claim that truth can be known because the statement “truth cannot be known,” is self-defeating. Yes, that particular statement is self-defeating, but to say the opposite must then be true is willfully ignorant. I shouldn’t have to explain why, but I will.

If “truth cannot be known” is a known statement of truth, then it shows truth can be known making the statement wrong. The statement renders itself nonsensical by its own claim, hence self-defeating. However, if a internally consistent statement is all that is needed to ascertain the nature of valid knowledge, how about “we may or may not be able to know truth.” There is nothing self-defeating here. The two reasonable answers to the question of whether or not we can know all truths is not “yes, we can” and “no, we can’t;” it is “yes, we can” and “it’s unknown.”

That’s it. That’s the post. I’ve previously said that evidence and experience inform essential truth while philosophical ideas make absolute truth hard if not impossible to see. It's worth pointing out that our ability to know one truth doesn't mean we can know any or all truths. I've also talked about the one truth that comes to mind that can be objectively determined evidentially by the relational language of math. If you want to know about that, go read those posts. Here I’m only making clear that apologists expose their ignorance by presenting the linguistic straw man of a self-defeating statement. If you are an atheist, please let every apologist know it’s BS. If you are an apologist, stop it. Just stop. You make it hard for us to take future arguments seriously with this crap. I know apologists you respect came up with this line of reasoning, but they shouldn’t make you respect a shitty argument more than it is worth. If anything, their shitty argument should make you respect them less.

What Would Jesus Drink?

You're Not Alone

Martin S Pribble recently started The Not Alone Project. It's a platform for atheists to post their stories in an effort to show those who think we live in a God-fearing world that many have nothing to fear. Growing up surrounded by Christians, I didn't think atheism was even an option for a long while, so I am happy to contribute to a site showing that not only is it an option, it is the best.

The following is an excerpt from my post.

Half way into high school I went to camp for the first time in my life. It was a Christian Science camp which would be a very odd choice if not for the fact that I was a Christian Scientist. The camp’s selling point to my parents was the promise to re-up my faith and to provide leadership opportunities as a Counselor-in-Training. The camp’s selling point to me was a canoeing trip in Canada and a three-day capture-the-flag tournament. That, and I just wanted to get out of the house.

I feel like a little background in Christian Science is needed here. CS is a religion that teaches the works of Jesus did could also be done by us providing that we have enough faith and live free from sin. In the Bible, the disciples healed and performed other miracles after JC’s death, the same premise applies to here. The implication is that, as Christian Scientists, material medicine should be avoided because using it diminishes our faith to heal thyself through God. If you need to see someone, CS has their own kind of doctors called “Practitioners” who basically talk the patient through the disease with prayer. The avoidance of medicine and the word “Science” in the name is why Christian Science is often confused with Scientology. This used to bother the hell out of me, but, in retrospect, I had little reason to be upset. The beliefs involved are no less crazy. Christian Science just seemed less crazy because it followed the legacy myth of Jesus rather than the start-up myth of aliens.

My first (and only) year at Camp Leelanau off the lovely coast of Lake Michigan happened to come at the transitional age between camper and counselor. Much of my days were spent in preparation of returning the following year as staff. Of course, that didn’t pan out, but all-in-all it was a better experience than I imagine it would have been as a proper camper. The camp’s official Practitioner was from my home church in Georgia. Both he and his two daughters were regulars of the camp and played no small part in my recruitment. I also noted upon arrival that the camp had a nurse on staff. Not so much a faith healing nurse as a nurse nurse. I remember thinking that was as odd addition. It turned out she was present to help with injuries during the camp’s more physical activities–broken bones, poison sumac rashes, the kind of stuff that leaves a mark. Although Christian Science teaches that God can heal anything, practically, it’s best to leave the invisible deity to the invisible ailments.

To read the rest, check out The Not Alone Project.

Lingering Questions

“God of the gaps” is a type of theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence. (from Wikipedia) History has shown us that many gaps can and have been filled as scientific knowledge grows. So much so, in fact, that it is perfectly reasonable to assume that there is a natural explanation for our remaining gaps. Theists tend not to come to this conclusion, for obvious reasons, but I wonder how long this conclusion may be avoided. I wonder how much longer this theological perspective will have any semblance of relevancy.

The best example of a closed gap is Darwin’s shutdown of the argument from design. Of course, I realize there are still fringe individuals and backward denominations that dismiss evolution as a valid explainer of the world’s biological complexity, but if the slow-to-come-around Catholic Church is on board, it’s safe to say that the others are simply in denial. From most of my interactions with honest theists, their main beef with “evolution” is that it is incomplete--meaning that it doesn’t take into account life’s ultimate origin. We should recognize this for what it is: a misunderstanding of the Theory of Evolution’s scope, a moving of the goal post from the argument of design to entirely different argument, and a detour from a closed gap to another open gap.

via the great Jesus and Mo

Darwin closing one of the biggest gaps unintentionally converted many theists across the world. Atheist favorite, Richard Dawkins, wrote that he would still be swayed by life’s apparent design if not for the Theory of Evolution. However, explaining the complexity of life doesn’t explain the existence of life. Our biological origin is still an open gap. Science calls it abiogenesis. We have some ideas how it could have happened, but no reproducible experiments to prove which hypothesis is correct. Like the other gap of note, the ultimate origin of the universe, we are unsure. Whether you’re in the quantum foam, the violation of causality camp, or any of the other camps that could all be possible from what we see at the quantum level, there’s no smoking gun...yet.

My question to theists is this: would settling your lingering questions finally allow you to let go of God? Humanity is crazy smart. I used to think some answers would be forever beyond our grasp, but now that I have a clearer sense of where science is going, I wouldn’t take anything off the table. My advice? Don’t take atheism off the table. It’s already the most reasonable worldview, and it’s getting more reasonable everyday.